Tagged: Justin Verlander

It’s been five years since the Tigers last made it to the playoffs, and five years ago Justin Verlander was a rookie. For a rookie he pitched surprisingly well in the postseason. Verlander has always had the ability to perform in the clutch as if it weren’t any different than a normal game. Now that’s he’s had five years to develop as a better pitcher, I gotta be honest, I can’t wait to see him rock the playoffs again.

Verlander has always been one of my favorite players. I usually dislike players in the same division as the Sox but something about how Verlander carries himself has made me root for him. That and he’s a darn-good pitcher. Guys like Joe Mauer and Grady Sizemore I hate with a burning passion but I’ve always respected Verlander. Any guy who’s throwing 100 MPH into the eighth inning deserves some respect.

How will Verlander perform in the postseason? I don’t think it’ll be any different than the regular season. Count on eight innings of solid pitching, three runs or less, a handful of strikeouts, and single-digit hits. The guy is money. (No, literally, he IS money. It’s awesome.)

That’s enough on Verlander, time for the And Other Playoff Thoughts part. I’m putting the Arizona Diamondbacks in the Underdog category this season. The whole team has played REALLY well and my friend texted me the other day and said he thinks Upton deserves a shot at MVP. I kinda reviewed my MVP candidates a couple posts back and somehow completely forgot about Upton. While he hasn’t performed to the caliber of a Braun or a Fielder he’s definitely carried the D-Backs to a postseason appearance. Add Chris Young, Kelly Johnson, Ryan Roberts, Miguel Montero, and you’ve got yourself an offense. I doubt they’ll be able to get past the Phillies but people said the same thing about the Giants last year and look how that went.

That’s not a prediction, I’m just sayin’… y’know… it could happen…

The pitching is the only thing that bothers me about Arizona. They have all the other pieces but the pitching has been iffy. Unlike the Giants, who HAD pitching to go along with everything else, I think that’s what could ultimately be Arizona’s downfall. Ian Kennedy (20-4, 2.88) has been spectacular this year but past him and Daniel Hudson (16-11, 3.43) there’s a noticeable dropoff. Heck, even between Kennedy and Hudson there’s a dropoff. I don’t measure pitching by wins and losses, and people shouldn’t, because a pitcher can’t really control that. If you look at the ERA’s of the starting staff they’re giving up less than four runs per game.

Then you get into the bullpen. Some of the ERA’s in there are painful to look at but there are two bright spots. Closer J.J. Putz and reliever Joe Paterson. Putz has somehow managed to save forty-three games for the Diamondbacks this year after the Sox could barely get him to survive one inning. Paterson, even though he’s winless, has a 2.97 ERA in thirty-three and a third innings. Not bad. If the rest of the starting staff can kick it up a notch, and the bullpen can come through, I think the Diamondbacks will look like this year’s version of the Giants.

Over the course of one hundred sixty-two games there is bound to be a heartbreak or two. Or seven. Or ten. You never know, but there are going to be some. Tonight was just one of those games.

Any time Justin Verlander takes the mound you know it’s going to be a difficult battle. With an ERA of 3.12 it should be obvious that it will be tough. And it was. Much like Mark Buehrle yesterday, Verlander really only made one mistake: Gordon Beckham’s two-run home run in the fifth inning. Verlander stuck around until the eighth inning, still dealing, and then Jose Valverde came on in the ninth. Edwin Jackson had a decent outing himself, but a home run by Brennen Boesch in the top of the first inning sort of got things started at an awkward pace.

The usually reliable Jesse Crain gave up a two-run home run to Miguel Cabrera in the top of the ninth inning but that will happen when Cabrera is up to bat. The man is a professional ballplayer and he’s at the top of the Silver Slugger categories (batting average, home runs, runs batted in) year after year. I would rather be burned by a big flame than a little wimpy one. *coughCasperWellscough*

Crain will not earn any points for his appearance tonight. Chris Sale, who was in the game before Crain, and Will Ohman, who entered afterwards, will earn points – two each, to be exact. It’s rare that Jesse Crain lets us down. He’s only done it one or two times this year, not counting tonight, that I can remember. This far into the year I think that’s still a pretty good ratio of clutch situations to let-downs.

I’m glad to see that after a rough start to his year Will Ohman has turned it around. We now have a couple left-handers out in that bullpen that we can go to. I’m seeing Ohman more as a specialist throughout the remainder of the season and Chris Sale as long man/he’s-just-a-left-handed-pitcher man. Left-handers are highly coveted in baseball and we’ve got a couple of good ones on our hands.

Adam Dunn continued his struggles tonight, striking out another three times. Frank Thomas said in an interview with Boers and Bernstein on The Score (a sports radio station here in Chicago) that he “knew this was going to happen. You play outfield or first base your whole career and then you switch to at-bat by at-bat, it’s going to take a while to adjust.” Big Hurt also said that he should turn it around this month and we should start to see Adam Dunn-like numbers again. The guy knows his stuff so hopefully that’s true.

Alexei Ramirez was two-for-four in the game today so he’s still swinging a hot bat. He should smack everyone in the leg with it, maybe some of his luck will rub off. Or bruise off? Bruise off sounds pretty cool so we’ll go with that.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s game as Jake Peavy (2-0, 3.24) will take on Brad Penny (4-4, 4.72) at 1:05 pm. For whatever reason this pitching matchup looks really good to me. I’ve always been a fan of Brad Penny and with Peavy on the mound for us the two should make for a fantastic ballgame.

It seems like forever since we’ve been at home. It’s good to be back, I gotta tell you. It’s also good to have The Duke of Buehrl on the mound.

Buehrle pitched seven innings and really only had one mistake – that three-run home run off the bat of Casper Wells in the top of the fifth inning. Other than that, this outing was arguably his best of the year.

Carlos Quentin, Brent Lillibridge, and Juan Pierre all hit home runs. (It’s 2:26 am as I’m writing this so I apologize for it not being as thorough as usual. I’ve been at the Home School Conference the past two days and I have to go again in four hours so my mind is in other places 😛 That and yesterday’s off-day threw me off a little bit.)

Two points for Bruney and Thornton, three points for Santos for reaching double-digits in saves.

Good way to start off a series! We were a little more dependent on the home run than I wanted us to be but, with a team like this, that will happen some times. As long as we win it doesn’t matter.

I like sharing funny things that Ed and DJ say and I got one from tonight. Miguel Cabrera reached first base on a single and started removing his equipment

DJ: He has a lot of equipment to take off. Shin guard, elbow guard…

Ed: Right Guard.

DJ: Right Guard? You’ve been getting a little closer to him than I have…

Hilarious. I love it.

Oh! And remember that thing that I teased a few weeks ago? That I said was coming and is insanely awesome? Well, it’ll be here on Monday. I’ll be sure to take some pictures for you to see. I’m so excited about it!

Game two of this series is tomorrow – Justin Verlander (5-3, 3.12) will take on Edwin Jackson (4-5, 4.63).

Wait, are we allowed to do this? The number in the “W” column – not quite sure what the W stands for, I’ll have to look it up – went up by one. Can we do that…?

The W must stand for Wefinallywonagame…

Believe it or not, that is actually how I felt when the game was over. It feels so good to win a ballgame! Floyd pitched very well, everyone on the offense contributed, and our defense was more than average. Adam Dunn drove in a run! Ed Farmer thinks that it’ll take another few games before he’s completely re-acclimated to playing full-time, but as long as he drives in a run per game he can take as long as he needs to before he hits home runs again.

Ohman, Santos, and Gray all pitched very well out of the bullpen. Somebody must’ve knocked out and bagged the old Will Ohman, stuck him in a closet, brought out this new guy, jersey’d him up, and told him that he is now Will Ohman and will pitch effectively. Whoever he is, I like him and he needs to stay. Two points for everybody. Hooray for good outings!

Bullpen Points Leaderboard

1. Sergio Santos – 10 points

2. Will Ohman – 9 points

3. Jesse Crain – 8 points

4. Will Ohman – 7 points

5. Chris Sale – 5 points

5. Tony Pena – 5 points

6. Jeff Gray – 4 points

7. Matt Thornton – 1 point

Thankfully I can now change my background theme, as you have seen already, as it was literally making me sad to look at the Rays theme even though it was only up for less than twenty
-four hours.

Cleveland is still off to a white-hot start as they’re currently leading 2-0 over the Royals in the bottom of the eighth inning. The Tribe 13-5 on the season, which is ridiculous. Now that Grady Sizemore is back that team is looking really good. Choo, Hafner, Sizemore, Cabrera, Carmona, and Masterson are a pretty good core group of players.

The Royals aren’t doing too bad, either, as they trail the Indians by two games in the AL Central standings. A lot of early walk-off wins for that young team (with a few veterans peppered in for good measure).

And, saving the best for last, Joe Mauer is on the 15-day DL. I typically don’t smile at other peoples’ misfortune but I have the biggest grin on my face right now. I love seeing Twins go down. Call me horrible, but it’s true.

Wow… can’t believe I said that… actually, I can. Nevermind.

The Sox will head into Motown tomorrow as Mark Buehrle (1-1, 4.50) will take on Justin “Bunny” Verlander (1-2, 3.41). I’ll tell you the not-so-interesting story about that nickname tomorrow.